Peanut butter has been a popular “health” treat for years but with the availability of so many other types of nut butter we decided to put a spin on the always-popular peanut butter cookie recipe with an almond rendition that also includes (surprise!) CBD to put these goodies to the work of supporting our endocannabinoid system while also pampering our sweet tooth. To that end, we are proud to introduce a new Fern Valley Farms creation: our CBD-Infused and Kief-y Almond Butter Cookies!
There are a lot of popular nuts on the marketplace today but we chose almonds because of the many health and wellness benefits it brings to our bodies. So before we dive into the specifics of this amazingly delicious recipe, let’s talk about almonds.
Some Almond Facts
While almonds are native to the Middle East, the United States is now the world’s largest producer of this popular and healthy nut. This nut has proven highly versatile, as evidenced by the broad variety of almond-based beverages and foods found in most grocery stores:
- Almond Butter – a popular alternative spread to peanut butter which is used in our featured recipe this month
- Almond Cream – a thicker richer version of the popular almond milk consumed by millions daily
- Almond Extract – imparts a strong almond flavor that helps to enhance foods containing almonds
- Almond Flour – an excellent alternative for those seeking a gluten-free substitute to wheat flour
- Almond Milk – no longer just for the lactose-intolerant, many people prefer this over dairy milk
- Almond Oil – used for skin and hair care as well as adding a nutty toasted flavor to foods
- Almond Paste – like marzipan but better for you because of its lower sugar and higher almond content
But it isn’t just the variety of food types into which almonds can transform that makes this nut special.
Consider the following known health benefits which can be gained from almonds:
- Antioxidant – whenever possible, enjoy almonds with the skin on since that skin contains most of the antioxidants that help fight aging and disease
- Blood Sugar Management – the rich amounts of magnesium in almonds can help in blood sugar control while the fats, fiber, and proteins in them are excellent for diabetics
- Curb Hunger – almonds are low in carbs but high in fiber and protein, both of which boost the feeling of fullness and lower the desire to eat more
- Lower Blood Pressure – almonds are rich in magnesium, crucial to maintaining proper blood pressure levels and avoiding possible heart attacks, kidney failure, and strokes
- Lower Cholesterol – almonds have proven effective in lowering our LDL (low-density lipoprotein) – or “bad” – cholesterol levels that are known to contribute to heart disease
- Rich in Vitamin E – part of the fat-soluble antioxidant family, 1 ounce of almonds deliver 37% of your RDI and may help battle Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease
- Weight Loss Aid – while almonds are rich in nutrients, not all of them are easily digested, so your body absorbs about 15% less of the calories contained in almonds
When you peek at the nutrient profile of almonds, the above benefits shouldn’t surprise you too much. For example, in one ounce (28 grams) of almonds you will find:
- Fat – 14 grams (50% of the almond content)
- Protein – 6 grams (over 21% of the almond content)
- Fiber – 3.5 grams (12.5% of the almond content)
It should also be noted that 9 of the 14 grams of fat are monounsaturated, one of the “healthy” fats.
But there’s more; almonds help meet the Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) of the following essential nutrients:
- Manganese – 32% of the RDI
- Magnesium – 20% of the RDI
- Vitamin E – 37% of the RDI
Finally, that same ounce of almonds only has 161 calories and just 2.5 grams of digestible carbohydrates and even contains copper, phosphorus, and riboflavin.
With this kind of evidence backing it up, there should be no doubt that almonds are incredibly versatile and healthy.
CBD-Infused and Kief-y Almond Butter Cookies
Perhaps you didn’t need any convincing simply because you love the flavor of almonds, but it never hurts to back up your cravings with some good health facts! Regardless, you will find that this CBD-infused and kief-y almond butter cookies recipe is quite easy to bake, which is good because they are all too easy to gobble up!
You will notice that four of the listed ingredients use almonds in one form or another; this helps to emphasize that unique and wonderful almond flavor in each bite you take. It also, in tandem with the cannabinoids you will add, makes for a healthy treat that happens to be sweetly delicious. Seriously, what more could you ask for in a cookie?
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup CBD-infused coconut oil (our Sous Vide: CBD-Infusion Made Simpler article shows how to make this)
- ⅓ cup almond cream
- 1 tablespoon almond extract
- 1 cup creamy almond butter
- ⅔ cup cane sugar
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup decarboxylated Fern Valley Farms kief
- ¼ cup finely chopped almonds
- ¼ cup chocolate chips
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- Sugar (to sprinkle on cookies before baking)
Directions
- In a small saucepan over low heat, stir together the CBD-infused coconut oil, almond cream, and almond extract until warm and combined.
- Pour the warmed liquid mixture into a large bowl and add the almond butter and sugar. Stir until well combined; it’s okay if it’s not completely smooth as those little lumps of almond butter offer excellent bursts of taste when you bite into a cookie.
- Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon until combined into a cohesive dough. Finally, mix in the finely chopped almonds (fine enough to be partly powdery, as this adds to the flour consistency) and chocolate chips.
- Transfer the dough to a covered container and let it harden in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
- Once the dough has hardened, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Remove the container with the dough from the refrigerator. Make 12 balls about the size of 1½ tablespoons, rolling them between your hands to make them as round as possible. Set them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. This uses about 1/2 of your dough, so return the rest to the fridge to keep it cool and hard.
- Using a fork, flatten the balls and make a criss-cross pattern (it’s helpful to dip the fork into a small bowl of water each time to prevent sticking). Sprinkle a little sugar on the cookies before baking them.
- Place the tray on the middle rack. You want to bake them for about 13 to 14 minutes total, but it is advisable to rotate them after they’ve been in the oven for about 6 minutes. When the edges are firm, remove them from the oven. Cool for 5 minutes on the tray, then transfer them to a cooling rack.
- Return to Step 5 and repeat for the remaining dough, or save the dough for another day.
- If you baked both batches, you now have two-dozen cookies. Serve once they have cooled to room temperature but keep them in the fridge afterward to keep them fresh and firm. Store in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 1 week, or freeze for as long as 3 months.
Thanks to the fact that no dairy products are used in this healthy recipe, the shelf life of these CBD-infused and kief-y almond butter cookies when kept in your fridge is quite flexible. While we say your CBD-infused and kief-y almond butter cookies can last a full week in a sealed container in the fridge, some people claim they stay as fresh as when they came out of the oven (minus the warmth) well after two full weeks in the fridge.
We say the greater challenge is to keep your grubby fingers off those cookies for one week to prove they stay fresh longer than cookies made with dairy products. Good luck with that!
Estimating the Cannabinoid Potency of Your Almond Butter Cookies
As always, we want to close our recipe with some good ol’ math calculations! No, solving math problems doesn’t improve your digestion but it will inform you as to how many of those yummy CBD-infused and kief-y almond butter cookies you might want to gobble down in one sitting.
So let’s grab our trusty calculators and dive into this double-edged math challenge, determining the potencies of both your kief and CBD-infused coconut oil.
Estimating Kief Potency
We will jump right into the nitty-gritty of estimating the potency of your kief. For those who want more details, we recommend our article, Decarboxylation Demystified, which provides a deeper dive into the process of decarboxylation of both kief and hemp plant materials as well as a step-by-step breakdown for estimating the potency of decarboxylated materials.
Do keep in mind that the best you will get is an estimate of the potency of the kief you use in this recipe. For your personal consumption, a reasonable range of potency is acceptable.
As you may have noticed, we did not identify a particular kief strain to use for this recipe. This is because any kief strain will work, so you should find a strain that delivers the benefits you prefer. For this sample estimate, we selected Sour Lifter kief, a Sativa-dominant strain with a healthy 18.58% CBD content (before decarboxylation).
After decarboxylation, there would be about the same amount of activated CBD content; in this case, we will round it up to 19% per gram. This recipe calls for ¼ cup of decarboxylated kief. A teaspoon of decarboxylated kief weighs about ½ gram; there are 12 teaspoons in a ¼ cup or about 6 grams of decarboxylated kief.
Each gram of decarboxylated kief contains 19% CBD, or 190mg of CBD per gram. Since you used 6 grams, you added a total of 1,140mg of CBD from the decarboxylated kief.
Estimating CBD-Infused Coconut Oil Potency
Our recipe calls for ⅓ cup of CBD-infused coconut oil. Our article, Sous Vide: CBD-Infusion Made Simpler, offers a simple method for calculating the CBD content of your CBD-infused coconut oil, so let’s use that.
To stay with the same strain theme, we are going to assume that you decided to infuse ¼ ounce of Sour Lifter smalls (with a 16.91% CBD content before decarboxylation) into 1 cup of coconut oil using the sous vide infusion method. After decarboxylating your Sour Lifter smalls, you will end up with about 6 grams with a CBD potency of 17%, for a total of 1,020mg.
Again, we will simplify this calculation. After completing the infusion process, a portion of coconut oil is dissipated. We will assume that ¾ of the original cup remains and it contains the 1,020mg of CBD from the 6 grams of Sour Lifter smalls.
We are only using ⅓ of a cup, so a little division is required. There are 16 tablespoons in a cup; we are working with ¾ of a cup, so we have 12 tablespoons that hold 1,020mg of CBD. By dividing the total 1,020mg by 12, we find that each tablespoon holds 85mg of CBD.
Finally, there are 5⅓ tablespoons in ⅓ of a cup, so we multiply 85 by 5.333; the result is about 450mg of CBD in your coconut oil.
Combining the Kief and CBD-Infused Coconut Oil Potencies
Hang on! We are now nearing the end of our calculations!
All we need to do now is to add together the potency from our two sources of cannabinoids and divide it by the number of cookies we made and we are good to go!
In our previous calculations, we determined that your kief contains about 1,140mg of CBD and your CBD-infused coconut oil holds about 450mg of CBD.
That means you have a combined amount of about 1,590mg of CBD in your batch of CBD-infused and kief-y almond butter cookies.
Our recipe indicated that you can make 24 cookies, so we simply divide the 1,590mg of CBD by 24 and we learn that each CBD-infused and kief-y almond butter cookie contains over 65mg of CBD (66.25mg, to be precise but since it is an estimate, let’s keep rounding down).
Now that’s one powerful and delicious cookie! Keep in mind that we were conservative on our estimates, so it’s likely your final product is more potent than we calculated, so go low and go slow please!
